Taynor

Duchy of Scarlen

Hey guys I know OP has been fun and all, but since no one is willing to pay more money to keep a page going after Chris leaves. So I (Claire) made a new free forum for all of us! It can be found here: http://lusus.proboards.com/index.cgi Please join and fill out the preliminary info.

This is not an adventure post and I will take it down in a few days but I wanted everyone to see it. If you are posting an adventure log for a non-Taynor campaign please write: the name of the campaign (and the quest), who DMed, who played, what characters were there, and whether it is “to be continued”, please also note what the party had decided to do next if applicable. For example:

Summary: The party heard that the harbor was closed because of a threat against the harbor master. They went to help and learned that it was either a threat from the Free Sailors guild or from certain members of the Navy. They did some investigating (Since this was basicly a filler adventure I’m not going into detail) came to the conclusion that the Navy was responsible. They went to the bar rumored to be a hang out for Navy radicals and yelled at all the patrons to fess up. Two Navy men immediately attacked the party. They had a battle and the party killed them. The meeting then concluded.

In their first collaborative adventure, the fierce foursome of Bill, Rick, Keith and Robert set off north into unmapped wilderness, following rumors of a lost dungeon crawl. Their journey led them unwittingly into gnoll territory, bringing a whole tribe of vicious monsters down upon their heads; running from this, Bill noticed a narrow ravine amidst the mountainous piles of stone, and led the others down the rocky path to a strange and unexpected terminal. This, then, was the beginning of the mysterious dungeon. But how to enter? A mysterious riddle barred the way, and the howls of the wild dog-men behind the four heroes proved more than a little distracting.
It was Keith, dynamic dragon-mage, who solved the puzzle. While Rick and Robert held the gnoll warriors off at the entrance and Bill dueled a huge insectoid horror, summoned by a shaman’s arts, the clever Keith reassembled the puzzle’s pieces into a ten-segment wheel and used it to dial the carved number set in the inscription. Upon its usage, the unlocked door rolled aside and the party piled in through the yawning entrance-way, heedless of what lay either behind or before.
As it turned out, nothing lay before them—literally. The floor of this ancient foyer had long ago crumbled entirely away, leaving naught but gaping blackness and a small ledge on which the adroit adventurers now huddled. The walls were sheer, interspersed only rarely with cracks or suitable handholds, and the next door waited on the opposite side of the forty-foot chasm that the room had become. This new task—to reach the door—seemed impossible, but for one factor; a series of iron rings set midway up the wall, once used as tack for visitors’ mounts and now a veritable monkey-bar set.
Bill and Rick used their intensive acrobatic training to traverse leftwards along the ring of rings, ending up at the far ledge, while Keith descended safely into the thirty-foot chasm and out again through his draconic powers. Robert, however, had a different agenda: to the right another door awaited, this one without a ledge, and to it he climbed while wearing a borrowed Climbing Ring of Bill’s. The second door led to a storeroom of weapons, mostly rusted or rotted through, with the single exception of a acid-green glowing shortsword hidden in a dusty corner. Robert, battle-ready rogue, has taken this sword for his own.
From there, the fast-paced foursome’s travails only increased. In the hallway following, the most fragile of tensions held a ceilingful of rock in uneasy equilibrium; only with two crushing casualties and the expenditure of strong healing magic did Rick, Robert, Keith and Bill reach the next hallway alive. This next room, strange though it seems, was covered with a thousand mirrors and bookended by two more doors. A sprung trap from each door shot a bolt of deadly light, which refracted throughout the scintillating hall into a million-legged beam of pain. Bill’s and Robert’s quick toolwork deactivated the arcane laser, but not before Keith and Rick felt its fiery sting to the eigth degree. Unfortunately, their tinkering rendered the righthand door unopenable, and the hardy heroes found their only way forward to be through the lefthand portal—into a surprisingly harmless meeting hall, devoid even of the skeletal corpses that had become a common sight in the dungeon.
Appearances, while often deceiving, are sometimes true. No traps or monsters awaited in the meeting hall: only a long wooden table and a pair of trestle benches. The tapestry on one wall, however, hid a secret door, which proved the only other exit; this Bill, shrewd stuntman, opened and passed through, with his fellow adventurers following behind.
Sadly, the room beyond was essentially a death chamber, chock full of inventively lethal traps! Acid sprayed up and covered the floor, while a trapdoor slid aside to reveal diamond-sharp spikes and a wall-sized panel of arrow traps began a nonstop bombardment of the doorway. Within the first round, Keith lay close to death from multiple puncture wounds, and the others cowered out of arrow line-of-sight and plotted their next move. It fell then to Rick, quickfisted Puritan, to solve the riddle of the death-room. While Keith slowly healed through his supernatural vitality, Rick, whose unclouded mind could infallibly distinguish truth from falsehood, looked closer and saw the spike trap for what it was: a devious illusion, hiding a door.
From there, the story is simple. Keith healed unto consciousness, Robert and Bill drew their weapons in preparation, and the quartet of precipitous protagonists leaped one by one down the hole, knowing that any destination was better than the monstrous forest they had escaped, not to mention better than getting physically lambasted by a hundred-year-old volley of rusty arrows. Where they may end up, or whether their epic even continues, is a mystery (except to yours truly); what matters is that their awesome exploits so far will earn each earl of excellence a dozen bar wenches apiece in this life, and a timeless legend in the next.

This wednesday, the Fourteenth of September, officially marked the day when party operability and stability officially croaked it’s last. Perhaps its for the better – hell, it has never been a very strong force. But the faltering flames of party unity got a bathtub’s worth of cold water dumped on them today, when the party lost every last member of the goodly alignment. A good 60% of the party are chaotic evil – the kind of person who would gut you with a harpoon soon as look at you. I forsee a lot of harpoons.

However, despite a conglomeration of races and motivations which would send any fantasy writer into catatonic shock, the party somehow managed not to kill each other off in the first half hour – probably because they were too busy deciding to go north. And north they will go! To the lands of ale and trade controlled by the Starnhelmian dwarves, the Bone Mountains.

The rest, as they say, is going to be bloody destructive horrendous violence.

The day after school gets out. A thrilling one, we all know. A dazzlingly amazing beautifully wonderful one, to be an understater (Totally a word.). Also, perchance, a day for DND. I know, I know, this should go under the “Schedule” or “New meetings page” on the wiki, or somesuch. But I felt that the site has, mainly due to me, been feeling some neglect lately… and we should get it running again. This summer should be full of goblins, ghouls, zombies, and of course, gold and exp. So I propose thusly – A meet the day after the last final. I was planning to plan for a plan to have the meet planned to be planned on sunday, but my plans fell through. Thursday it must be, for I have to study on sunday.
Any thoughts, my fellow adventurers?

The yekatohu is traped in the severed head of a late party member and whats-his-name the flying ranger is trying to kill the party, he already succeeded in killing an innocent bystander and Marius. Marrow is now a regular undead with a backpack containing all the loot the party has collected.

There was a lot of arguing about whether to go south to recover the money Aldeth stole or go north to a graveyard where the party might be able to speak to a ghost about defeating the Yekatohu. The Yekatohu was possessing Marius and he convinced the party to go south, because, according to him, money would be needed to defeat the Yekatohu. On the way south Shadid was attacked by illusions and was badly hurt by this dark magic. That morning the Yekatohu possessed Jackbrass because Marius wrests control back from the demon. Jackbrass was quickly taken down (but not killed) after he started fireing magic missiles at Shadid. Apparently the Yekatohu did not like Shadid. Marius promptly told the party that they were all stupid for listening to the Yekatohu, and some of the party members confessed that they really just wanted money. Marius had the idea of blindfolding Jackbrass thinking it might stop the Yekatohu from possessing anyone with its ranged ability. A mercenary showed up at the camp and was very interested in Jackbrass because he thought he was a Myrtorian relic. The entire party freaked out and told the mercenary not to touch Jackbrass or he would be possessed. The mercenary told the party that he was also heading north and asked to tag along. After a long session of questioning the party agreed to let the mercenary travel with them, if only to ensure that he would not touch Jackbrass. The mercenary pulled a door off his cloak and the party used it as a sled to drag the Warforge. Marius told the party that they should in-fact be heading north and that money was not actually needed to defeat the Yekatohu. A day or so later Marius cut Jackbrass free claiming he was not possessed after all.

The party was all set to head north when Constance, the badger person, yelled that before they went anywhere they needed to buy healing potions. The party went to Sparrowsdale, which was to the north anyway, and waited outside the town while Marius went shopping. After that they all continued north until Marius remembered that it’s cold in the north and everybody would need winter gear. The party made a short detour to a small town and Marius once again went in by himself to buy things, among them were crafting materials the mercenary requested to make a garrote. Marius returned and shortly after the party made camp. Three days later during the first watch the mercenary nearly killed Mr. Flint by putting a locking garrote around his neck and dumping him in a ditch. Next the Yekatohu possessed mercenary shot frost at Jackbrass a few times then called forth a magic fog that blinded most of the group. Marius using the magic seeing stone spotted the mercenary and held him while Marrow chopped his head off. Marius then claimed the Yekatohu would be trapped for 24ish hours.

And that was the end of the meeting, could someone please edit this as I don’t think it is entirely accurate.
-facts edited by Conor/Aleks

Last sunday was, to put it minimally, confusing. Confusing as hell. However, here is it in chronological order and as clearly as possible – for your reading pleasure and so that your head doesn’t explode from plot twist overload.
The party escaped the prison of an age old spirit – Malor. Deposited roughly on the road back to Storm, they decided to head that way – what with not having many other options. On the road back they encountered a quartet of centaurs, all four of which were friendly. They were just finishing a short parley with these four when a swooping shadow and a high pitched shriek warned them of danger on swift wings – a small black dragon.
The dragon however, was not the true foe to be feared here – that title lies with the Yekatohu, a spirit of ice and death which some of the party members had fought earlier. As the dragon provided an ample distraction, the Yekatohu tried to possess one of the newer members of the party. Failing that, it took control of one of the centaurs, and had an impromptu “meet n’ greet” with aforementioned party member.
After vanquishing the dragon, the party decided (after much deliberation) to continue onwards towards Storm. Their journey, however, was disrupted when the party wizard, Marius, warned of a demonic mist which was trailing them. After a bit of an interim in which the Yekatohu, through the use of a centaurian child, possessed Constance, the party continued onwards, in a state of severe confusion as to what to do about the odd spirit tailing them.
That night, the Yekatohu further meddled with the group by conjuring the illusion that Mask was getting his questionably theiving fingers on another party member’s hard earned loot. This caused some minor disputing within the party, but not anything too serious.
The next morning, however, things began to really heat up.
Aldeth, the party archer and rider of Snickers the Hippogriff, took off to the rising sun, a pack heavy with mushrooms on his back, and the best of intentions in his heart. But gold, clinking, shining, insidious gold, corrupts even the best of us – and Aldeth perhaps wasn’t the best of us.
It turned out that the mushrooms were worth a whopping 5,000 gold pieces each – a price Aldeth couldn’t afford to share. The day after receiving payment from Parthen, he hopped onto his eagle-beaked steed and rode south. Where bound, none but he could tell you – and perhaps Marius, the elf whose distrust runs thicker and faster than any river.
A few days after he hightailed it out of Storm, the rest of the party arrived. After some rather ingenious detective work (consisting of “He isn’t here. He must be somewhere else.”) The party determined that Aldeth was gone, and so, mysteriously, was their gold. Understandably angry at this slight, the party resolved to follow with murder in their hearts – until a certain icy someone intervened. Mask and a few others had managed to deduce that Constance was possessed – and then Mask decided it would be a good idea to insult the temperamental and Chaotic Evil spirit. This resulted in Mask being shot by a blast of icy cold, and then Marrow tackling Constance, the possessed badger-woman. Mask ran to get help, and on returning, saw that Constance was paralyzed. The party then went immediately to the one man powerful enough to incapacitate the spirit for a good duration of time – Parthen Kitilistalianaktik. Parthen complied, paralyzing Constance, and then the party went to one of the few people alive who had dealt with the creature and lived – Panacea the cleric of Pelor. She was living in Sparrowsdale, doing research for the Pelorian order there.
The party traveled to the Pelorian temple in Sparrowsdale, and immediately sought out Panacea – she advised them to do as Marius had suggested – get a way to speak with dead and find the Frost Folk graveyard, to speak with those long dead who had before successfully defeated the Yekatohu. During this conversation, the high priestess came into the room – and on request, cordially pointed out both Marius and Mask as being candidates for possession: And did not point out Constance.
Still confused?
“I am the eggman, I am the eggman, I am the Yekatohu!”

As I gear up for another chilling, exciting, and possibly quite destructive meeting of the LSRHS D&D club, I realize: I forgot to update the adventure log! (Thanks to the cloaked creepy guy with the skeleton for the reminder.)
So, I give you “It Went Swimmingly”.

Exposition and adventure! Onwards and upwards friends. Finally, the party has escaped the clutches of mount Ragnor and the dangers of Malor’s Prison – only to find that while they are a good deal richer in gold, in knowledge they remain poor. Malor’s motives for escape seem murky, and his reason for imprisonment murkier still. The figure of Parthen becomes ever more enshrouded in mystery and shadow, and group shifts have not made solving this mystery any easier. The party, with so little information, has decided to shift focus, and find another adventure to occupy themselves with – Beware though, should Marius and his followers, for the past has a way of catching up to those who ignore it. Icy spirits and long-named half elves do so enjoy causing trouble.
But, to the facts of the last meeting, the minutes of court, if you will. Battling through multiple more rooms of a deadly dungeon, Marius’ party was aided towards the end of the deadly halls by a spectral wolf, the incarnation of Malor’s will, dormant now thousands of years. Instead of taking advantage of this unique and wholly remarkable avenue into the shadowy history of the Duchy of Taynor, they instead complained that it lacked adequate fighting prowess. Typical, eh?
They fought through the last few rooms without too much in the way of unexpected events, until they discovered and obtained the last of the gems – instantly flooding the caverns with gallons upon gallons of lava. In shock, the party realized that the lava was not affecting them, and they heard only Malor’s voice telling them to “swim”. They swam up and out through the molten rock, ending up clean and dry on the ground next to the party fighter’s horse. While the party was still re-orienting itself, Malor said his hasty goodbyes and dissapeared.
The party, in a slight state of confusion, is now on the road back to Storm. (With the exception of Panacea who decided to leave the party and perhaps the adventuring lifestyle all together in favor of assisting the Pelorian temple in Sparrowsdale. Dean Judd also left the group and the party has gained two new members in their place, one is a Wood Elf and the other is a half-dwarf half-badger creature known as a Wildren who originates from another plane.)

Today we had quite a few happenings down in the caves of Malor – we had exposition, we had plot, we had mindless bashing, we had strategy, we had trap and, of course, we had lava. Lots and lots of lava. Or magma rather, pardon me.
This lava was under floors, at the ends of hallways and just generally in places it shouldn’t be.
But, lets start at the beginning.
The beginning began somewhat inauspiciously, for an adventure to be full of molten death. It began with a skeleton (marrow) and a robot (Jackbrass) rolling in muck. I say that in all seriousness. Muck. Poisonous gooey glop. They were doing so to release all of the pockets of poison inside of it, thus rendering them… safe?
It worked, somehow. The party members trapped on the other side of the roomful of muck made it across, only getting their feet a little dirty rather than their everything a little dead.
We then progressed to the exciting naptime! all of the players, exhausted and wounded, decided that it was time to valiantly rest where no man, woman, or robot had rested before. This, like everything else ever, resulted in party in-fighting, squabbling over who gets the bed in the corner. By bed I of course mean pile of stone.
Moving on, we get to the exposition.
Marius used his voodoo “knowledge” and “learning” to “analyze” things. Yeah, I don’t know what that means either. Just go with it. He “learned” that the Myrtorian roots of the word Malor can be translated as one of two things – either “Dead one” or “Dead to the World” both of which are not very cheery. He also learned of a man named Balthius, apparently one of the first to espouse the obscure religion of Deis Majorianism, the calling of, nowadays, Parthen Kitilistalianaktik.
The party, after revealing this interesting bit of information, decided to continue on through the caverns, in search of more gemstones: now they were on the lookout for blue rubies. They have, thus far, discovered a room with a nasty trap which makes the floor explode (to reveal, of course, lava) a room filled with treacherous animated statues and a blue ruby, and a room filled with treasure and a blue ruby (which of course was guarded by a lava trap.) They have now stumbled clumsily into what appears to be a hive of giant bees, each the size of a large dog.
Think lassie. Then shorten the fur and change it to black and yellow. Then give her wings. Then give her two more legs and make them insectoid. Then give her bee-eyes. And then make the rest of her into a bee. And then you have something not at all like lassie.
Why did I make you turn lassie into a bee?
Because I can.
And, on that note, I bid you good night.
-Vermill